What a year at the movies for us “nerds” and comic book fans. Another entry to the Marvel Cinematic Universe or simply MCU made its way to the big screen. The MCU is sort of like a train: a train that is chugging along, almost at an unstoppable pace a with no end in sight. Let’s take a look at the last 3 films: Black Panther won 3 Oscars and made $1.3 billion at the box office. Avengers: Infinity War is currently ranked as #60 on IMDB’s best movie list and also hauled in over $2 billion at the box office. Ant-Man and the Wasp was slightly less successful by comparison only taking in $617 million at the box office. Now we get introduced to a new character with untold power who is supposed to help the Avengers after their battle with Thanos in Infinity War. You put together a well known cast starring Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, and Jude Law set in some 90’s nostalgia?? It goes without saying that Captain Marvel was set up to make some money with the next Avengers film due to follow in late April.
This MCU entry has its fair share of strengths. (not including the fact that Captain Marvel is supposed to be among the universe’s most powerful characters) I personally loved setting the movie in the past. They wrapped 90’s “cool” all over this one with the soundtrack, the cars, the stores, and the clothes. It definitely feels like we zapped back 25 or so years. The standard Marvel humor is sprinkled in throughout and fits in perfectly while not feeling forced. The story is also well written, giving some twists and turns along the way (I won’t be the one to spoil it so go see it or at least do the spoiling yourself)
After reading other reviews online, I can tell there were quite a few people who found numerous weaknesses during their theater trips. In my eyes, there aren’t tremendous weaknesses, there are just things that don’t add to its score for strengths. As mentioned in the beginning, the cast assembled is normally very good which should lead to very good performances. Here I feel that we didn’t get that top notch performance as expected, we just got “ok” efforts. No one was outright terrible, but I think that almost any female star (in a similar age range) could have played Carol/Captain Marvel and the movie would not have lost any luster. Same goes for Ben Mendelsohn and Jude Law. I like them both but replace them and the movie is not any worse off.
The MCU has been rolling along for over 10 years and 21 movies now and we kind of have expectations for each new release. Captain Marvel zooms in and delivers exactly the kind of entertainment I was expecting to see at my AMC. It does not shine with the best (Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnorak, Captain America: Winter Soldier) and it certainly does not hang down low with the misfits (Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Incredible Hulk). It just sort of exists, right in the the middle of the pack (Black Panther, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man). 2019 should be a great year at the movies as the MCU starts out with 2 Apologies for Captain Marvel and her crew. It scratches the itch while we wait for Endgame.
-Movie Apologist